"We've got to make sure we find out exactly how we can arrest it with the playing group so we don't have this happen next year."

The defeat takes Carlton's record to 5-11 and well outside finals contention, but Malthouse is optimistic that his side can turn things around over the remaining six rounds.

"The best thing is we've identified a lot of areas, now we've got to work on it," he said.

"We've got to work on players coming to the football club. We've got to work on these lapses. We've got to work on getting these players to play consistently good football that they're not only proud of but that they can actually reproduce.

"There's nothing wrong with our attitude. The boys have a crack.

"They're as mystified as what we all are, in saying `well how can it possibly happen?'

"That you go in at half-time (with) ... not optimism that we're going to go and slaughter Sydney, but optimism that what we did right in the first half is what we've got to duplicate.

"And for some reason that falls off."

Asked how long it would take for the Blues to build a list to match Sydney's, which he labelled last week as the "strongest and deepest" he'd seen in football, Malthouse replied: "How long is a piece of string?

"It could be the rest of this season, it could be part of next season, but at least it gives us a starting point."